Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley met at Belmont University in Nashville, started making music, produced an EP and then moved pretty quickly from the lobby bar of Nashville’s Hotel Indigo to sharing an arena stage with Luke Bryan.

But learning all about what happened before Belmont taught me that I barely knew Hubbard and Kelley at all.

That’s all important because it’s those little moments that led him to start making music so early. By the time Kelley went off to college, he’d already had a head start writing songs when he was still in high school.

“I always had a thing with words and poems and always liked writing papers for school,” Kelley said. “And I was very intrigued by the way that you could take words and turn them into a melody and make a song and tell a story in three or four minutes. And growing up in church and having a faith background, the first music I wrote was Christian music.”

There is even some video of Kelley in his college dorm singing an original song that included the lyrics, “I thought to myself/If she’s got a man/I’ll have to steal her away.”

Fast forward almost 10 years, and Kelley has turned that love of words and storytelling into the kind of country that some have dismissed as not very country at all.

Those criticisms don’t bother Scott Borchetta, the head of their record label.

“If you don’t like it, it’s not for you,” he said. “So turn it off.”

Inside Fame airs Sunday (May 25) at 10 a.m. ET/PT on CMT, but you can watch the full episode online at CMT.com.